[miroljub]

Yes, this basically means the EU pushed a new censorship regulation using lawfare tricks without ever having a majority vote for the proposal.

If it's not a dictatorship, a regime, a shithole, a kleptocracy, or whatever name they use for a government they don't like, I don't know what it is.

[budududuroiu]

The regulation was rejected today with 314 votes against, 276 in favor, and 17 abstentions, but because of Metsola's lawfare that classified this regulation as under an "urgent procedure", an absolute majority was required to reject.

[raverbashing]

I wonder if the abstentions are counting "missing MEPs" or MEPs present but who did not vote

[b3orn]

The EU parliament has 720 representatives (at the moment 719, one seat is vacant apparently), so 113 representatives didn't show up for the vote. The absolute majority would've been reached with 361 votes.

[omnimus]

And there were a lot of them. Some i assume just couldn't give a fuck and are on vacation. The others for sure did it to help approval while keeping "clean" to their audience.

[inigyou]

Chat Control 2.0 is the censorship regulation. Chat Control 1.0 just legalized what Facebook was doing anyway.

[budududuroiu]

Sure, then just let the normal legislative process run its course, no need to bleed political capital and get an already polarised electorate to hate the EU even more by shoving this legislation through in this way.

[logifail]

> no need to bleed political capital

I'm not sure the EU needs to worry about political capital in the way that many national and regional governments do. Power moves through negotiations between institutions, party groups, lobbyists, activists, and heads of government rather than through anything voters can trace. If one is being unkind, it's basically backroom deals all the way down. Naturally, the EU has more respectable terms for this sort of thing, like "trilogue".

Look at how the President of the European Commission got her job in 2019 - there was an election campaign in which major parties presented lead candidates for the post and she wasn't one of them, then post-election - ta da - she's nominiated for the post and there's a confirmatory vote in the Parliament on which the ballot paper had precisely one name listed - hers.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48853746

https://www.alamy.com/16-july-2019-france-france-straburg-a-...

[jltsiren]

That's how multi-party parliamentarism usually works. A minority is not allowed to choose the leader just because they are a slightly larger minority than the others.

Because no party has an outright majority, there are weeks of negotiations after the elections, as the parties try to find a compromise acceptable to a majority. Once a deal has been reached, the parliament votes to confirm it. If the vote fails, the parties return to negotiations.

Von der Leyen was chosen to head the Commission, because she was an acceptable compromise. All lead candidates had been tried before her, but all of them failed to obtain majority support in the negotiations.

[logifail]

All the European Council's negotiations were private.

No public hearings, no public votes, not even any public parliamentary debates(!) about different candidates for the Commission. This is indeed "the EU way", trying to find compromise via party-family bargaining ... in private.

> All lead candidates had been tried before her, but all of them failed to obtain majority support in the negotiations.

The Parliament didn't actually get to vote on any of the other candidates, did they?

[jltsiren]

All real negotiations are private. When politicians debate or negotiate in public, they inevitably start talking past each other to the general public.

Voting rituals would be a waste of time. The confirmation vote is not just about the President of the Commission but the entire package, including other major positions in the Commission and major policy directions. If no party has a majority, no candidate can hope to get majority support before the whole package has been agreed on.

[budududuroiu]

I agree, my point about political capital was about the overton window shifting to allow a more mainstream EU-skeptic platform for national parties, platforms which up until recently were easily labelled Russophiles or European traitors for US money.

I was aware that VDL obtained her role by routing around the Spitzenkandidaten process, but I was never aware that her confirmatory vote was done in this way.

Her unpopularity at home also reinforces the idea that unpopular politicians can be sent to Brussels, because "in Brussels, you can't hear them scream".

[dbdr]

It's absolutely legitimate to be upset. However, identifying a lawfare trick in a close vote to a dictatorship is serious hyperbole. I'm afraid that's counterproductive.

[miroljub]

Close vote?

They passed a regulation with 276 votes in favor, 314 votes against, and 17 abstained. The minority decided instead of the majority.

If this is not a dictatorship, what is it then? In any case, it has nothing to do with the democracy.

[dbdr]

My point is that this was a minority of 46.7% making that decision (because of a technicality that has been pointed out already). In a dictatorship, a minority of 1 against a million or more makes all the decisions. Even though you can say 46.7% and 0.0001% are both below 50%, it's missing a lot of nuance to claim they are of the same nature.